Glass Daughter
by paynesgrey
Summary: In Naraku's final moments, Kanna has some deep introspection of why she was made and the core definition of her own self, that she was the very last one loyal to her father. Kanna. Naraku. Character death.


**Written for Dawnsama's request for the January iyflashfic. Thanks to foamyfan15010 and Numisma for the beta job.

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**Glass Daughter**

Looking at him through eyes made by _him_, he never appeared so fragile and childlike to her.

She would have never been so contemplative about him, but now – he was _dying_.

And children were supposed to cry when their father was dying, when he was breathing his last breaths. But when did she consider him her father? When did she consider herself his child?

She had never, for a moment of her short existence, ever thought of herself a child. The appearance, created by her father, was supposed to be deceptive. She was a trick, a puppet molded from hot glass that singed the souls of others with her innocent look.

She could never be what a child was, even if she looked it, for she was nothing more than a façade. She had never been curious about children or why she even looked like one of them. Kanna never even considered she should _be_ a child because she rarely thought at all. She just knew what she was supposed to be because she was an instrument, an extension of her "father" that was used, not nurtured, for his many desires and whims.

She never cared; she was just there with him. And as long as she did what he said, she didn't have time to think, time to ponder, or time to wish.

But now, Kanna could ponder, think, wish, wonder and realize many things about herself that she had never wondered about before. Her duties were coming to an end, and she had lots of time – so much time to do something for herself.

But she didn't know herself, and what she did know was through _him_.

Her father let out a defeated chuckle. She blinked once before a realization pushed to the forefront of her mind, and then, she remembered that her father was dying because he was beaten, that the jewel was killing him, _slowly _– because he had deserved to suffer for all the things he had done.

Within his mangled heap, an arm that was barely held to his torso reached out for her. She still held her mirror and watched him, waiting for his orders – _anything_ that he wanted her to do. She opened her mouth – and closed it, feeling her glass teeth scratch against her false tongue; she was helpless as she watched him. Naraku's once brilliant, ruby eyes began to fade to starched sienna, an unsaturated color of ember that would soon fade to ash.

"Kanna – my little Kanna." He laughed again, his fingers just inches from her mirror. She stood still, and did not even care if he managed to touch her. He couldn't; it was stressful for him just to move. His life would expire soon, and Kanna had watched him carefully to see him struggling, reaching out for her to do something when she was more alive than he was.

Though, there was nothing she could do; he was always the more powerful one, and all she had mind to do was stand here and watch him die. She didn't even have the desire to _want_ to help him. Though, in her general make-up, the will to help or care was not there, not rich enough that she should even try.

And now, he had wanted her help, but she couldn't – not by herself. He smiled at her with futile pleading, and she cocked her head curiously to question if the expression she was seeing from him was even real. Why was he being sentimental toward her at such a time?

She had seen this look before on the humans she had controlled – of the fathers and mothers and children whose souls she had stolen from them.

He was looking to her as his daughter and not his instrument.

And then her mind faded, and memories splashed and swirled in her mind like playful fish. The voices of humans blanketed her, and she felt herself reeling from this point to another spot in time.

"Kakeru? Are you not hungry?" the man asked his daughter, who had just listlessly stared at the table with glazed eyes and motionless limbs.

The girl said nothing. Kanna watched them through an open window, and she studied the family closely as her puppet deceived them all. She waited, and the girl Kakeru soullessly went back to her family, planting the seed of Naraku's plot. He honestly believed that someone in this village had a shard. Kanna didn't question him; she just acted and performed.

And when Kakeru came to her dutifully, shard in her closed hand, she did not blink an eye when her father had told her to take care of them all – to leave his signature to the place where he found the shard as a victory. So, per his orders, she sucked the life out of the family first and then the people of the village next.

But she remembered this because of that father, a stranger she did not care about. He had pleaded with his life, like so many others, and begged her to spare his daughter, to return her soul.

It was not the will of _her_ father, so she could not do it. Yet, the event was memorable, mainly because this father had acted so very different from her father. Then she realized that many human fathers acted different from _her_ father.

With this, she began to wonder slightly that maybe Naraku wasn't really her father. However, thinking was futile, and she did not have the nutrients to flower such an idea in her head. She did not have the will to think beyond that, to wonder more, and to fuel the power to second-guess.

But the memory only returned now for fruition to expand upon that old thought, that her father was now dying and looking to her the same way as that stranger did when she took the life of his daughter so long ago.

Naraku continued to lock his eyes with her, to look upon her in his final moment.

"You were the last," he breathed from a shattered windpipe. She didn't know how he could die since he had been once so amorphous and invulnerable. Yet somewhere in the hard shell of a body far away from here, his heart had been torn and twisted, and finally, disintegrated by the blinding light of a holy arrow.

His arm reached out farther, and he made a noise of effort through his broken throat. His finger pads touched desperately at the glass on her mirror.

"You were always here," he said, as he clutched the frame of her mirror and pulled her closer. She continued to watch him with hollow eyes.

"Yes," she said, as if to indicate in her way that she would not go – and never go from him as long as she lived.

"It's time, Kanna," he croaked, and she had never heard his voice sound so weak. He made a noise from his mouth, and a small burst of power ripped through his arm as he clutched her mirror. He gripped it hard with a swift gesture. She watched as purple liquid miasma trickled down the corners of his mouth. And then, as he touched her mirror so tightly, she felt a connection form between them, moving to share the energy Kanna still had. With that energy, Naraku had some time and power to add to his grip on her, and soon, Kanna began to feel bruised and weak.

She looked at her hands, veins filling with purple poisoned miasma as his nails dug into her mirror. She made a noise of pain, her face contorting in anguish for once in her whole existence. Then, the mirror cracked. She cried.

Naraku laughed, and Kanna then realized how painful loyalty was – how agonizing it was to be connected to someone like a father.

Fractures continued to crack and hiss on her mirror, and she felt her own body resonating with them, forming scratches and cracks over her pale limbs. She whimpered, and then looked with frightened eyes into the eyes of her father.

"Father?" she murmured in question. Her body was breaking, her energy was waning, and she was fighting her way to even stand. Naraku seemed content, almost with Zen – as if he knew where they were going and that he accepted it. He accepted death and he would make her accept it too.

If he was going to die, so would she.

Shaking, he looked so very old, and his warmth became dull. He could easily let go, even when her mirror was already breaking and shattering to pieces that would ultimately destroy her. But instead, he held onto her, sucking on the lifeline between them, keeping contact with the one person that did not betray him – ever.

And together, they locked eyes. She had never felt so cold – she had never felt so real and she wondered if he was doing more than just taking her energy by sharing his feelings with her – giving her his when she had none. His touch was warm and very much like a father.

Suddenly, that memory of the father and daughter she had killed idly returned to her. But instead, her image had taken place of the daughter and Naraku had taken place of the father. They were smiling, sitting at the table and being _real_. In this memory, she could feel and laugh.

Her eyes blurred, and she heard Naraku wheeze. Her false memory was pulled from her, and she was back in the dark cave where her father was dying. She studied him, and in that moment, he didn't look angry or betrayed; he looked – _finished_, like a once told tale finally having its bitter, but satisfying end.

Jagged lines were drawn heavily over her flesh. Her eyes closed, and she felt weightless when her body tumbled from under her. Hot, angled fragments cut through her form, breaking away from her, stabbing into the ground and into her father's bloodless flesh.

With one last noise of pain, he slumped to the ground, grabbing at her pieces and using his last bit of their strength to absorb her shards into him. Together they sighed as death finally gripped at their scattered shells.

And so they were one again, she was his daughter and he was her father and she was his father and he was her daughter – and thus their reality became still, blinked, and shattered like ice.

Then, with a howling burst of quick wind within the cold new grave, daughter and father of glass and ash were inert, and soon, long forgotten.

THE END


End file.
